


Notes in a Symphony

by MistyBeethoven



Series: Yes, I Really Am This Pathetic! [92]
Category: Bill & Ted (Movies)
Genre: Age Difference, Aging, BBW, Childhood Friends, Decisions, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fix-It, Fix-It of Sorts, Friendship, Growing Old, Growing Old Together, Growing Up, Guitars, Living Together, Love, Love Stories, Marriage Proposal, Musicians, Older Man/Younger Woman, Overweight, POV Third Person, Post-Canon Fix-It, Regret, Rock Stars, Science Fiction, Self-Indulgent, Self-Insert, Suicide, Ted-centric, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, Waiting, Weight Issues, break-it, philosophical
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-19
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-17 09:08:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28846551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MistyBeethoven/pseuds/MistyBeethoven
Summary: Ted "Theodore" Logan has a problem: the overweight classmate of his little brother Deacon has a crush on him. He finds it rather sweet until, as the years progress and the girl is still around, he can't encourage her.Ted is all too aware that he is destined to save the world with his best friend and bandmate Bill S. Preston Esq. and that his fate lies with the lovely Princess Elizabeth.However as Ted grows older and the prophecy a man named Rufus gave seems mistaken, an elderly Logan begins to wonder where his life went wrong and if he could change things by showing his younger self the danger in believing in destiny...
Relationships: Billie Logan & Ted "Theodore" Logan, Captain Logan & Ted "Theodore" Logan, Captain Logan/Missy Preston-Logan, Deacon Logan & Ted "Theodore" Logan, Elizabeth/Ted "Theodore" Logan, Grim Reaper | Death (Bill & Ted) & Ted "Theodore" Logan, Ted "Theodore" Logan & Bill S. Preston Esq., Ted "Theodore" Logan & Missy Preston-Logan, Ted "Theodore" Logan/Me
Series: Yes, I Really Am This Pathetic! [92]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1589944
Kudos: 4





	Notes in a Symphony

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Smarts](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21153821) by [MistyBeethoven](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MistyBeethoven/pseuds/MistyBeethoven). 



> Well, I'd been wanting to do a follow up to "Smarts" because it was so melancholy in its way. I wanted a happy ending. 
> 
> I also have been considering the fact that for this series I needed a "Bill and Ted Face the Music" Entry. 
> 
> Only problem...I HATE "Bill & Ted Face the Music". Not the final entry for the B&T series I wanted...the focus shifting...B&T being failures, their triumph being given to their daughters and a general lack of good music. 
> 
> So, yesterday morning I woke up three hours too early and couldn't get back to sleep. Lying there, my mind racing like it usually does, the thought came to me...what if old Ted was to show young Ted the events of that movie? What would Ted think? I saw his reaction, written here, and knew I had to go with it and found a good way to infuse it with my "Smarts" sequel.
> 
> I worked on it all day yesterday and it was finished last night but I needed to edit it so I set it aside to finish up today.
> 
> It doesn't make sense in places...its an odd mixture of crack/comedy but also an honest and mature reflection on life, time, regret and growing older. 
> 
> I am pleased with it.
> 
> Essentially, this is my fixit fic which still manages to *break* it because if canon is gonna be fooled around with I might as well do it on my own terms!

**San Dimas, California. 1988**

"You ever think about what we'll be like when we're old?" Ted "Theodore" Logan heard Bill S. Preston Esq. ask after another not quite triumphant band practice in the Preston garage.

"How old?" Ted asked.

" _Real_ old," Bill asked. "You know, like twenty-five?"

The taller member of the Wyld Stallyns stopped and contemplated the question,removing the guitar strap from around his neck. His dark hair, wide at the sides, bounced and his mouth hung open as he thought about it. Eventually he replied, with a shrug, "I don't know...probably on our world tour...chatting up and fighting over Lita Ford or polishing our platinum records."

Bill considered this. "Righteous."

"I'd better get home before my father rips me another one or threatens to send me away again," Ted said jovially, walking towards the garage door.

"You don't think he's serious, do you?" his blond friend shouted out.

"Nah," Ted Logan laughed. "He just likes to scare me every once in a while."

On the walk back to his house, Ted consumed himself with his normal thoughts, ones involving tactics to get Eddie Van Halen to appear in one of the Wyld Stallyns videos but soon found himself too hungry to concentrate. Such brainstorming set off his stomach. And more used to using his physical abilities than his mental skills, he found himself overexerted and hungry. The moment he entered his house he intended to remedy it with the box of Chips Ahoy sitting in the kitchen cupboard.

Unfortunately, it meant passing his father in the living room to get there.

"Have you been neglecting your studies again to go play the banjo with that loser Preston?" Captain John Logan accused, passing him in the hallway.

"It's a guitar and yeah," Ted replied politely.

" _Yeah_?" the senior Logan echoed. "Is that what they teach you in that so called school? The word is 'yes', Theodore Logan!"

"Yes, sir," the second eldest Logan male replied on edge.

"Where are you going to now?" his father demanded.

"The kitchen."

Captain Logan nodded his head. "Fine...make sure it's a carrot or something. We don't want you to get as fat as that girl your brother is partnered with for science."

When Ted heard his father use that one word to describe the chubby, shy, little grade schooler burdened with being paired with his bratty brother, he felt closer to being angry with his father than he had previously been. Some protective urged flared inside of him. "She's just a little bulky," he argued.

"She'd down right morbidly obese and her parents should put her on a strict diet," the older man snapped, storming out to the living room.

Ted wanted to go after him, would have, except his dad always frightened him. No matter what ge had told Bill, he _did_ worry that one day he would find himself at some Godforsaken academy up in the middle of nowhere. So he just turned the other cheek and walked towards the kitchen, his footsteps a little heavier as he thought of the insulted kid.

He'd taken to calling and thinking of the girl as little princess. Deacon said she was Erin Smyth but she looked so shy and in need of encouragement that Theodore had decided to give her a nickname to make her feel better. She was big but cute.

And she obviously had a crush on him.

Only yesterday, the teenage boy had been dressing and felt eyes on him only to turn and see her pretty green-gray eye staring at him through the crack of an opening in the door he had left a little open. He'd stopped and stared at her in surprise until Erin had just run off, embarrased at being caught. Ted had just stood there trying to figure it out, embarrased himself but kind of flattered too and shocked as well. Having no women around he'd forgotten that they had their own growing pains to deal with. He guessed that little girls were just as curious about grown dudes bodies as little boys were about the bods of bodacious babes.

He'd tried to help her not feel awkward when she'd left, remembering his own stealthy viewings of the girls in their underwear in any catalogue he could get his grubby ten year old hands on.

"See ya tomorrow, little princess," he had said with a gentle warmness.

Erin had given him a nod and then bolted for the door.

Grabbing the box of cookies out of the cupboard, Ted "Theodore" Logan wondered if now that it _was_ tomorrow he would actually see her or if she was too scared. That was when Deacon came into the kitchen, intent on being annoying.

"Give me a Chips Ahoy before my Ziggy Piggy of a science partner shows up and eats them all.

"You shouldn't insult her, you little turd," Ted snapped heatedly, less scared of his snot nosed brother than his father. "She's doing all of your work for you."

"You like 'em fat or something?" Deacon asked with a cruel grin. "Never took you for the type."

Ted felt himself close to turning red from anger or embarrassment, he couldn't tell which. In retaliation, the only thing he could think of to do was hold the Chips Ahoy box high above his head and out of Deacon's reach. "You want 'em so badly, come and get 'em squirt."

The youngest Logan looked fuming mad then and rushed forward, trying to grab them in defiance by jumping in the air. "Give them to me, butthole!"

"Not until you say please or grow a foot or two," Ted stated, enjoying seeing his little brother fail in his futile attempts to grab the box.

"Well, at least, I'll be taller in a few more years," Deacon stopped to say maliciously. "You'll still be just as dumb."

The pain caused by his brother's words were something Ted Logan had not anticipated. It would have hurt far less if Deacon had grabbed a knife from out of the drawer and shoved it into his arm. "Here," he said, slamming the stupid box of cookies into his victorious sibling's hands.

It was then that he turned and found Erin staring at him in the doorway. She'd clearly been there the whole time and had heard her classmate's insult. Ted swallowed harshly, feeling more exposed than when the girl had been watching him half dressed and changing. He felt his face turning the shade hers had only yesterday before he brushed past her, suddenly wanting the comfort and sanctuary of his bedroom.

Once there, one half of the Wyld Stallyns fell to the floor by the pile of his dirty clothing. He was crying without wanting to and grabbed something off of the top of the clothing heap to dry his eyes. Discovering it was the last pair of underwear he had worn, Ted mumbled "No way," and threw it back, feeling all the more stupider...or stupid. Whatever word was right.

He could ask the visitor entering his room but decided against it.

Erin came and sat beside him, folding her legs Indian style and just sitting there silently, giving him company without the unecessary small talk.

"I wish I was smarter," he finally said, not strong enough to actually look at her incase she wished the same thing.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her looking to the Wyld Stallyns poster Bill and him had made only days ago. She'd been the first one they had shown it to. "I think the way you spelt Wild Stallions was really clever," she stated,obviously trying to cheer him up.

It didn't work.

"You mean we didn't spell it right?" he turned and asked the forth grader in shock.

The resulting look on her face, as she realized it wasn't an intentional goof, might have been funny if it wasn't so tragic. "Neither did the Beatles," Erin informed him.

"They didn't?" Ted asked, hopeful even though he knew he should have realized this too.

She shook her head, her short brown hair, fittingly Beatlesque in its way, whipped to and fro.

This made him feel a little better but Deacon's words were still a burr to his ego that he was finding hard to shake off. Seeing this, the overweight girl tried even more past her natural shyness to console him.

"Smarts aren't worth a thing," Erin Smyth, his little princess, said, her voice shaky with nerves but not from a lie. "Not if you don't have a good heart. And you have a far bigger heart than most peoples hearts and brains combined."

Even though she had thrown something close to being a math quiz in there, Ted thought about her words and he suddenly understood them, feeling even better still. His little brother's science partner just essentially said he was _nicer_ than most brainiacs out there and that this meant more to her. "Geez! Thanks!" he exclaimed.

He was still grinning as silence settled in comfortably around them and the girl moved in closer, wrapping her chubby arms around his waist, clumsily. They felt so nice there, Ted couldn't help but putting his own arm around Erin and holding her too.

However, when she kissed his cheek, rubbing it with her nose afterwards, no matter how good it felt or how much he appreciated it and cared for her, he understood he could not return it. Knowing too though that soon her project with Deacon would be over, Ted Logan let the girl do it without reprimand or reproach but accepted it as the sweet and loving act that it was.

"You'd better go before people start saying I'm a perv," Ted said, at last, sitting up straight and feeling a different kind of sadness taking over him.

She smiled and hugged him again before leaving. At the door, she stopped and offered him a wave and a sweet smile and Ted thought if Bill were to ask him the question about the future for a second time that he'd probably reply that he hoped his future had in it a smile just like the one Erin was giving him.

Even if it couldn't be hers.

"See ya later, little princess," he said and waved at her cheerfully, goofily before watching her go off to Deacon's, no doubt, empty room to work on a Science project alone.

Weeks later when Deacon brought home an **"F"** and ranted and raved after a two hour lecture from their dad, Ted smiled knowing that Erin was too smart to have earned such a letter on purpose. He wanted to thank her but hardly ever saw her after that. Sometimes here and there in San Dimas but not anywhere or anytime he felt was right enough to approach her without someone calling up his dad and saying his son was a chester.

Besides, soon after that he almost flunked history and his father threatened to send him off to military academy unless he passed. Things had looked pretty hopeless until this funky dude named Rufus had shown up with a time travelling phone booth, telling both Bill and him that they were gonna save the world with their music but first they had to collect a bunch of old dead dudes, and one dudette, so they could ace their history project.

Along the way he had found an actual historical babe with Erin's warm smile...

A princess his own age and not one drastically behind.

And the rest, as they said, was history.

**San Dimas, California. 1991**

"Dude, did you see her? She was hiding in the back again..." Bill S. Preston Esq. asked Ted "Theodore" Logan after they dropped the princesses off at their apartment to freshen up for the party.

Ted thought he knew whom Bill meant, had caught a few glimpses of her peeking around the entranceway at him too but was too busy blushing to say more than, "Who?"

" _Erin_ , dude!" Bill said, acting like he was best friends with the most dense guy on the planet.

Ted looked out the window of the van in embarrassment. Then he suddenly recalled their talk with Wardroe after the try out. "You don't think she heard us saying that we cleared out Deacon's school dance do you?"

"Hopefully she was gone by then," Bill said.

"Good," Ted exhaled in relief. Erin had been the only one to stay for that debacle, after all. He'd have hated for her to have heard their misleading choice of words and think he'd forgotten she had, at least, been kind enough to stay.

To see the Wyld Stallyns perform had probably been the only reason she had even been there at all.

"I can't believe we suck, Ted, and you still found yourself with a groupie."

Ted frowned and squirmed in his seat. Whenever he'd thought of groupies before they'd all been at least sixteen. They weren't thirteen years olds with bad and painful crushes. "She's not a groupie she's a fan," Ted argued, wishing he could say friend but thought that might look weird too.

He recalled them talking with each other after that junior high school horror show; how she had lied and told him he was improving and how he had said she looked good, even though she was in that awkward stage when things were all growing out of sync. It had been sweet actually, the two of them talking, until Elizabeth had come along and dragged him back to the van.

"Who was that sweet fat girl you were conversing with, Ted?" the princess had asked.

"She's not fat; she's bulky," Ted had replied and then answered. "An old friend."

Elizabeth had raised an eyebrow. "Of yours or Deacon's? She's rather _young_ to be a friend, is she not?"

He'd felt just as pervvy then as he did now, facing Bill's potential teasing.

Except his friend wasn't in the teasing mood. "Well we need all the fans we can get. We don't have long to _not_ suck," Bill complained. "Plus we got to worry about your babe's three number birthday and us proposing..."

"Shoot," Ted said and brought a hand to his hair. "I forgot to go get the rings!"

"How are we supposed to propose, Ted, without any rings?" Bill asked, flustered.

Ted hastily unbuckled his seat belt and exited the parked van, peering in through the window. "You think you can wait here while I go and try to find some? No, wait, I'll meet you at the apartment."

"Sure," Bill said. "The princesses take forever anyway, you know?"

"I know," Ted said, grateful of the fact for the first time in his relationship with the medieval babe.

He turned around and started to run, hoping he could find a shop close enough in time to buy two rings. He was still blindly running, more concerned with speed than caution, when he crashed into a person turning the corner. "Sorry...I," he was saying until he finally saw whom it was he was apologizing to.

Of all the people he had to bump into, quite literally, then, of course, it would have to be Erin.

"Ted," she said, rubbing her arm.

"I'm so sorry, Erin," he apologized again.

He saw the look on her face when he said her name. She kept waiting for his former endearment to return. But with a _real_ princess in his life now, Ted felt guilty about using it on anyone else. He wanted to explain it to her, felt the pull to do it now, but time was running out.

He was about to tell her that he had someplace to be when the teenager quickly blurted out, "I got tickets for the Battle of the Bands."

"Were you there this afternoon?" he asked a question that was virtually pointless.

"Yeah," she said and nodded, rubbing her arm now, not as if it was still hurting her but more like she was treasuring that brief and brutal contact.

"Thanks," Ted said, not knowing why but feeling happy and grateful without Bill or the princesses around to see it.

Erin smiled at him brightly and for a moment Ted forgot where he was going to in such a hurry until he heard the other Wyld Stallyns members screaming at him inside of his head to hurry up. "Look, Elizabeth's having a birthday party and I need to get a ring..."

"You're getting her a _ring_?" Erin asked after an audible swallow, guessing what that meant.

"Yeah," Ted replied with a nod, grateful that his hair was now shaped like two curtains he could sucessfully hide behind.

"Congratulations," the teenager said and offered him her chubby hand where once she had offered him her smile. Ted guessed that her smile would be absent for quite some time now.

He took the hand and shook it, but the contact seemed to recall that moment they had sat on the floor together and she soon was hugging him. "Wait, oh please, Ted, _wait_ ," she murmured into his arm. It was clear she wasn't talking about him staying with her there on the sidewalk, but till a time she stood a chance at being his one and only princess.

In her arms, remembering how she had made him feel consoled and good enough so long ago, it was more tempting to follow her plea than he would ever confess to Elizabeth, Bill, his father, brother and even to himself to wait for that child whom had stolen glimpses of him dressing to become an adult.

But that would take _time_.

She was thirteen now. Eighteen was five long years away and would she still even want him by then? He was already going out of his mind waiting for Elizabeth, that most chaste of damsels, several more years of _that_ wasn't exactly excellent.

"I can't," Ted heard himself saying, stroking the hair she was letting grow out. It was curly, something he never would have expected when it was in the shape of a bowl. "I've got to get going, little princess," he said trying to soften the blow by giving her one thing that she wanted.

She gave a small sob but then let him go.

"See you at the contest," he said, starting to move past her.

"Sure," she replied in a tone that betrayed her presence there would now be unlikely.

Ted threw her one sad glance before he left and started to run, trying to lose himself in the realization that all he had on him was nickels, dimes and quarters and the only rings he could buy would most likely come out of the Gashapon machines.

* * *

The next night during the Battle of the Bands when they performed and won after defeating the evil Bill and Ted robots and Nomolos, Ted "Theodore" Logan was on such a high that he did not look through the cheering crowd to see that a certain little princess was not among them.

He had a baby strapped to his back, a new wife he had just celebrated a most _enthusiastic_ and blissed out honeymoon with and all the talent of a rock god. He felt poised to save humanity and the whole world, confident Bill and he could do it, _would_ do it.

And to hell with failure and middle age.

They were _never_ growing old.

**San Dimas, California. 2020**

Ted was reaching for a bag of chips at the supermarket, the last one containing actual _fat_ , when his hand grasped someone else's whom was doing the same.

"Sorry," he said, overlapping the same apology from the other customer. He looked up to find a familiar face, giving him a familiar and shy smile.

"Erin," Ted said, looking at the older but still recognizable face of the little girl whom had once told him that having smarts didn't matter.

"Ted," the woman said, smiling wider now that she knew whom it was.

 _"She didn't recognize me,"_ Ted thought sadly. So many years had passed and he must have changed too much for her to have known it was him: the carefree boy she'd crushed on. The years hit him, the time he had spent being a father to Wilhelmina, husband to Elizabeth, bandmate and bestie with Bill Preston, all while desperately trying to write the song that would unite mankind and save the world.

He felt so old suddenly...

And so useless.

"You look great," he said and meant it. She'd never apparently lost the weight that had plagued her since childhood but she was carrying it happily now, as if it was no longer a burden and it looked kind of...sexy. Her face had aged well also, as did most people whom had on extra pounds. There was an old saying about wanting a fat ass in your later years with an unlined face or a thin butt with a line ridden visage. It seemed Erin had chosen the large ass with an unwrinkled face and both suited her. Although he felt like a dirty old geezer for having noticed the former.

"Thanks; you too," she said but he couldn't believe the words. Everytime he looked in the mirror his eyes were too sad to look good and his smile too false. All of his youthful enthusiasm had long ago faded. And though he often tried to act like the Ted "Theodore" Logan of the past, he felt like he couldn't get into the groove, so to speak.

On the other hand, Elizabeth seemed to have gotten younger.

He picked the bag of chips off of the shelf and handed it to her like a gift. "Here," he said.

"No," she argued.

"You better take it," he said. "Elizabeth keeps telling me I shouldn't eat so much."

He thought he saw her flinch, the princess' name still enough to wound her. She was also probably comparing how her waist was much thicker than his and he hated himself more than he usually did these days for having hurt her. "Please," he said, trying to make it better but not knowing how.

Erin, knowing what he was trying to do, took the bag of potato chips. Tex tried not to notice how their fingers touched briefly and how happy he was for it and grateful too that her ring finger was bare.

"Dad, get away from the junk food! If mom finds out..."

Ted turned to find Billie, his daughter, coming towards him. It was strange but at some point he had been utterly _convinced_ that he had had a _son_. Then all of a sudden both Bill and he had had daughters! He'd gone with it just like he had with most things in his life, assured by Rufus' words that everything would work out eventually and he would save the world someday.

Erin was looking at Billie Logan and he could see the flash of pain in her eyes again. He suddenly had a feeling that her naked finger had everything to do with him and that seeing his daughter was a painful experience for her. He turned to look at Wilhelmina, whom was glaring at him, waiting for an explanation of whom the stranger he was talking to was.

"Erin this is my daughter, Billie," he found himself introducing the two women and feeling like he was twisting a knife into his former little princess' side simply because he couldn't find a way to get out of it and survive the evening at home. "Billie, this is Erin, an old friend."

The overweight woman sighed, it was an automatic, almost indicernable action, she couldn't help either. "Hi Billie," she said.

The two women talked for a bit until the younger left to meet up with Thea Preston.

"She's an _awful_ lot like you," Erin said, looking extremely confused.

"Yeah, she is," Ted Logan replied, suddenly finding it very strange just _how_ much alike.

"Well, I've got to get going," Erin Smyth said, using the same words he had used on her once when they had bumped into each other during his search for a pair of rings.

He hated to see her go but knew that Elizabeth would soon be showing up and it would only be another twist of the knife. Why was he only ever causing Erin pain, Ted asked himself? How could he hurt her when he didn't hate her? On the contrary he lov...

"Goodbye," she said, gracing him with the same wave and beautiful smile she had given to him when she was only ten.

He tried to return it as he had once done. But now his cheer felt stale and his goofy charm out of date. "See ya later, little princess," he said in farewell.

Her smile turned so sad.

Weeks later, when he was informed that the universe was collapsing because of the Wyld Stallyns infinite failure to compose a song to unite everyone, he thought that news was already too late: the world had collapsed on him already when his little princess could not even smile when he called her that.

**San Dimas, California. 2067**

Lying in his bed, listening to it being Bill Preston's turn to sleep and keep him awake by his amped up snoring, Ted lay there wondering why exactly Bill and he were so close that they even had to die together. He loved Bill, possibly even more than he loved either Elizabeth and Billie combined. Sometimes he felt like he _was_ Bill, like they were halves of the same person. But recently he kind of regretted he had never truly been his own...

That he was not exactly individual.

It had never bothered him before, but nearing the end of his life he was starting to frequently ask "Why?" a hell of a lot more and finding anger slowly creeping in in lieu of any answer. It was something he tried to hide...it upset those he loved, so it was buried underneath his skin and in the corners of his heart so nobody could see it.

Several questions plagued him: why the hell had Thea and Billie turned out to be almost _exact_ gender reversed, carbon copies of Bill and himself? What was the point of their existence if some form of them had already been alive? Why had Rufus told them all those years ago they would be the ones to save the world when it had been their daughters in reality?

Why did Bill have to snore so damn loudly?

These questions and a million more surrounded him like the flies they couldn't completely keep out of the room.

Probably the worst of these questioning flies were always these two in particular...

Why had he wasted his life on some prophesized vision when it had not come true and it had not made him happy?

And where was his little princess?

Tonight the questions were so haunting, and Bill S Preston's snoring so invasive, that he could not stand it. Tired of life in general and seeing only one choice left to him, Ted "Theodore" Logan did the only thing at this stage of his life that seemed logical:

He took a shower with his guitar.

While it was still plugged in.

**The Other Side**

Ted looked at Death.

He'd been seeing him on and off again for so long, had been dying and coming back at regular intervals, it hardly seemed a scary experience anymore. Even dying was something boring by now.

"So is this really it?" Death asked, confused just as much as the dead guitarist was.

"I want a favor," elderly Ted asked.

"You think this is Christmas or your birthday?" Death said. "I already sent you cards."

"They are the last ones, death dude," the dead man whispered.

"And if I refuse? You are no longer in the proper condition to Melvin me," the Reaper mocked.

Ted smiled but the sadness in it seemed to shut his old friend up. "What happened to a woman named Erin Smyth?" Ted Logan asked. "I knew her...she was a bulky little girl that went to school with Deacon."

"I met her," Death informed in shame, breaking Ted's heart a little. "Heart attack...she's upstairs but I'm not sure you will be allowed to ever see her again," the hooded man added, breaking Ted's spirit even more.

"I broke her heart long before you ever did," the old man wheezed, exempting his friend from his guilt.

"What is your other request?" Death asked. "Be quick about it, I have ballroom lessons in an hour."

"I need Rufus' time machine," Ted asked. "Could you get it for me?"

The pale supernatural figure seemed genuinely confused. "Why would you..." his blue eyes widened in realization. "No, you can't!"

The old man stared at his friend and though he felt too tired to even find the words he managed, somehow hoping to appeal to the human side that Bill and he had helped create inside of the supernatural spectre.

"Maybe when you can't die and you can't age it doesn't really matter," Ted said, although from the look of the Reaper that last one didn't seem entirely right. "But when you're human, dude, and time is running out you just want the chance to make things right. Maybe if I hadn't hurt her I could take all of my mistakes and accept this death...but I can't Grim Reaper dude. It wasn't fair.

"Truth is...what happened to Bill and me wasn't either. All that Rufus told us was bogus. We were lied to even if I don't understand why and everything feels wrong here...from Billie to Thea to the Great Leader and that final song that sucked monkey balls. If I was fooled by some guy in a time machine from the future...Death...please let _me_ , at least, show my younger self the truth."

Death listened but then his eyes filled with tears. "But...if you do this we won't ever have met. We might not have always gotten along but...Bill and you are my family, Ted. My _only_ family."

Ted smiled, warmly and bright and for a moment he was his old self again. "We'll meet again. You can bet your un-life on it."

Perhaps it was seeing Theodore Logan being so much back to the happy go lucky rocker he had once been, but the ruler of mortality slowly started to smile too. He opened his arms and wrapped them around his friend and the two men held each other in the afterlife, giving their goodbyes to each other before even their hellos.

**San Dimas, California. 1991**

Ted had the two capsules containing the rings in his hands. He was running again, trying to make it to his apartment in time for Elizabeth's party. Ironically, however, right outside of his former house, Ted "Theodore" Logan bumped into something for the second time that night. Ted crashed into the phone booth, hitting his head and immediately falling to the floor the capsules flying out of his hands and rolling away.

Expecting to see Rufus, Ted felt extremely annoyed when an ancient old fart squeaked out instead. "Dude!" he accused. "You made me drop my balls!"

"It doesn't matter anyway; you won't be needing them," the vaguely familiar guy remarked. "I have something I want to show you; get in."

Ted sat up, eyeing the phone booth in suspicion. "Why should I?"

The old geezer rolled his eyes. "Because I'm _you,_ dude!"

"No way!" Ted threw back an admonishment in return. It was horrifying to think that the wrinkled old spotted prune before him with the sad eyes was him. He refused to accept it without proof. "If you're me old fossil dude, what number am I thinking of?"

"69," the grouchy old man snapped.

"Whoa!" young Ted exclaimed convinced.

"Get a new number, you doofus," old Ted instructed. "And get in before Jethro Tull get any older."

There was something so haunted and sad in the ancient version of himself's eyes that Ted had no other option. "Just be sure, I'm back in time for Elizabeth's party," he said, stepping inside. "We got to win that contest so we can unite the world. But we still need a lot of practice."

"Sure you do," the wrinkled raisin said ominously as he closed the doors.

**San Dimas, California. 1991**

The phone booth burst back into existence on the Logan's front lawn again, just as it had done three years ago. Only this time it contained a Ted and Old Ted instead of a Bill & Ted, the younger of which opened the phone booth doors and fell onto the grass gasping for air as if choking. "That was non,non ,non heinous!" the young man spat in horror as he turned to look up at his elderly self. "That had to be a joke, right?

"No young and ignorant Ted," old, wise Ted said. "That was what will happen decades from now."

Ted's face contorted in horror. "Dude, that was worse than a Nightmare on Elm Street or Friday the 13th! We were so old!"

His guide nodded.

"My eyes looked so dead and empty! Even when I smiled I didn't look really happy!"

"Tell me about it," old Ted remarked.

"And the clothing...I know I wear pink, dude, but _that_ was gross! I looked like a...a...middle of the roader faking it!"

The senior citizen nodded in agreement.

"Me and Bill were losers, dude!" Ted said in repulsion looking out into space, trying to forget what he'd just seen. "Our _daughters_ were the heroes? But they just seemed like bad xeroxes...and that song they made! I've heard better stuff on the radio, old ancient dude! _That_ got everybody to unite? How...how did they all agree on _that_ crap? Wait, How did they all know how to play it or their instruments? Bill and I are still even trying!"

His mind was reeling, about to break from questions he might not even want answered.

"Where...where were the metal rockers? A rapper called Kid Cudi? A caveman nobody's heard of? Louis Armstrong? I feel like someone cut our nads off man, dipped them in kerosene, sprinkled them with glitter and then took a torch to 'em..."

He looked up at his older self and frowned. "Weren't we supposed to save the world? Why didn't we? What was that?"

"That's what I've been asking myself secretly for forty years now," old Ted said in sorrow.

Young Ted looked in horror to the sky before his grandpa version began to speak again. "All that I've been able to figure out is that it doesn't matter..."

"What doesn't matter?" Ted asked, looking back into a sadder version of his own eyes.

"Bill and you saving the world," Ancient Ted said. "If you were the only reason the world was collapsing anyway...even if you weren't it doesn't matter. What matters is that you made the wrong choice, Ted 'Theodore' Logan...I made the wrong choice. And I don't want you to make it too. Time, well you either have enough of it or you don't."

His Rip Van Winkle self looked at him with so much loss and sorrow that young Ted shivered. Then the old dude shut the doors and left him all alone on the lawn.

"WAIT!" Ted shouted, still unsure of what he was supposed to do.

Rising to his feet, Ted was confused and desperate. Right then, avoiding the debacle he had just witnessed was foremost in his thoughts.

"Damnit!" he swore looking around. Only when his eyes rested on one of the capsules did anything start making any kind of sense. Walking like a man to the electric chair, or a seat at an Air Supply concert, Ted made his way to one of the capsules. Peering in at the heart shaped ring, Ted remembered the Elizabeth he had just seen...if that really _was_ Elizabeth. To tell the truth, he hardly even recognized her anymore as the same girl he had first seen on the balcony with a smile bright and sweet like that of a little girl he knew.

Staring at the ring, Ted suddenly threw the capsule away from him, as far as he could. And when it was successfully out of sight, he found the other and threw it in the opposite direction.

When the phone booth swiftly returned, Ted expected to see his old, gnarly face again but was greeted with the less than impressed face of Rufus instead.

"What do you think you are doing?" the cool dude asked. "You're scheduled to propose to Elizabeth in about an hour or two."

"Unh unh Rufus," Ted said, shaking his head. "I'm _not_ marrying her."

"But destiny...the future!"

"Screw destiny dude," Ted stated, stomping forward to talk with his friend. "Life shouldn't be on some some schedule like the military or school! Things happen sure...but when you start living by what you _think_ is supposed to happen...maybe nothing happens at all."

Rufus looked baffked. "What are you talking about?"

"I just saw the future, dude," Ted exclaimed. "It's nothing like you said! Maybe time isn't all set but God will work it out anyway. Maybe He's got it in the bag. Or maybe he's a jazz fan, dude, and He'll riff it as He goes along...all I know is that if you could be wrong about Bill and me saving the world...

"Wait a second," the older man interrupted. "Bill and you don't save the world?"

"No," Ted replied. "It's our daughters."

"You don't have daughters; you have _sons_ ," Rufus corrected.

"Check again Rufus, dude, we have two girls: Billie and Thea. Run it through your daughter, Kelly, or your babe the Great Leader."

Rufus now looked doubly confused. "What are you talking about? I don't have a babe. The Great Leader is a black dude and I certainly don't have a daughter with him."

Ted's head was spinning and he wished that he was smart again until he remembered what Erin had told him years ago: _"Smarts don't mean a thing. Not if you don't have a good heart. And you have a far bigger heart than most peoples hearts and brains combined."_

Erin knew he had a heart and now it was urging his brain to know that something was seriously _wrong_.

"But I saw..."

In a blaze of electricity another phone booth suddenly appeared. Rufus and Ted turned in unison to watch as a man stepped out of it. He was dressed like Rufus but all in shades of puke green. His hair was long, full and black and riding down his back, while his face looked swollen and puffy. "I am Nosehtam," he announced in a deep thick accent. "The cousin of Nomolos..."

"Who the hell is Nomolos, strange, future foreign dude?" Ted asked in supreme frustration.

"You'll never need to know now because you aren't marrying the princess," Nosehtam stated coldly. "I was his backup route incase his plan to stop you with the evil Bill and Ted robots failed. I was to change the sex of your offspring and make the world collapse by infiltrating yours and your insipid bandmate's minds with evil indetectable brainwaves sent out through your daughters' monotonous and redundant presences. They stole your destiny just as they stole your personalities. Faced with exact replicas of yourselves, you could not concentrate on being yourselves...you Ted, in particular were doomed to failure for you did not wish to be there and hated yourself just a little bit more than your comrade, Bill..."

Ted frowned knowing the words were true. "Maybe...but if I'm not marrying the princess anymore why are you here, angry future foil?"

"BECUASE YOU ANNOY ME JUST AS MUCH AS YOU DID MY COUSIN!" the villian started to openly scream and weep. "Your speech, your pretty face, the fact that you make even that jacket look good!"

"Whoa! Is that why you put my future self in that awful getup?" Ted accused in outrage.

"Yes! Yes!" Nosehtam vented in malicious joy. "But now, since that has all been stolen from me, all I can do is kill you!" the villian stepped away from the phone booth and on to the driveway holding up a futuristic weapon of some sort that made even the usually chill Rufus shudder in fear. "Prepare to meet James Hetfield soon!"

"James Hetfield isn't dead," Ted argued, too bewildered to be terrified.

"I _know_ ," Noshtam said gleefully. "But I don't like him either so he's next on my list."

Ted looked at his hands and was wondering if he could pull a David and Goliath with some rocks off the ground, when he no longer had to worry.

A car pulled into the driveway running over the future villian.

Rufus and Theodore smiled at each other as Captain Logan and Missy exited from the vehicle. "What the hell was that ruffian doing standing in my driveway?" John Logan exclaimed. His lips looked raw and red.

Missy looked at the dying man on the pavement, her own lips similarly raw and sore looking. She then looked up at her stepson. "I'm sorry honey...was he another one of your weird friends? Your father and I were kind of distracted and didn't see him."

"No problem!" Ted called out, glad his new stepmom had turned his father into a reckless driver. "Actually, Dad, that was the single most bodacious thing you've ever done for me."

"Okay," the Captain stated, looking tense. "But if anybody asks the nutcase jumped in front of the car, okay? It was an anti cop thing."

"Is the party still on for tonight?" Missy asked. "We were just about to get changed."

Ted was about to reply when Rufus interrupted him. "How about it? Now you don't have to worry about what you saw. You and Bill can marry the princesses, you'll have sons and you can save the world."

The co-founder of the Wyld Stallyns looked into Rufus' eyes and shook his head. "No Rufus...I have a feeling, daughters or sons, it would turn out just as badly. You see, I love Elizabeth but I love the little girl, who told me years ago that it didn't matter if I was smart or not, even more. I just let time get in the way."

"You mean that cute, fat, awkward groupie that comes to each of your miserable practices and so called performances?" Rufus asked.

"She's not fa..." Ted started to say but then realized it was better if he was honest and accepted Erin for whom she was just as she had accepted him. "Yeah the fat, little bodacious babe in the making who loves me even though I'm a horrible guitarist with hardly a proper working brain cell in my head."

Rufus stared at him blankly. "That's kind of pervvy, isn't it? The history books must have edited that part about you out."

"Not if I wait until she's old enough!" Ted exclaimed in exasperation.

"But what about world unity?"

"What world _unity_?" Ted stated. "Maybe where you come from, Rufus, that seems fine but maybe even that's just some fantasy that has holes in it if you stare for too long. That glimpse that Bill and I saw...that haunts me sometimes, dude, but I never said it. Besides the atrocious fashion...everything seemed the _same_ like Nosehtam's suit...Maybe unity just seems like brainwashing or conforming. That's not the spirit of metal, dude. Look Rufus, people unite when they think they are gonna be nuked or die or whatever but only for a few moments in time. Then they go back to being bogus assholes. That's human nature. Thinking you can change them...well maybe it's a control thing. And we _have_ no control; not any of us, Rufus. Maybe all you can do is try to be the best person you can be and try every day not to hurt somebody else."

The two men were silent as the couple behind them went on worrying about how to cover up the manslaughter they had just committed.

"Okay," Rufus said, pulling out a pair of shades and putting them on. "But those capsules you just threw away might as well have been blue..."

The time traveller stepped into the phonebooth and broke into a kind smile. "Ted..."

"Yeah Rufus?"

"You and Bill be excellent to each other, huh?"

"You can count on it," Ted said. "Oh and Rufus...party on dude!"

The older man nodded and then the phonebooth disappeared in another brilliant lightshow, leaving behind a very confused Mr. and Mrs. Logan but a resolved and content bad guitarist named Ted.

* * *

The party for Elizabeth was a half-hearted affair for Theodore. He knew it was the final time he'd ever be with the historical babe in that way, but when she joked about him marrying Missy he didn't feel too bad. Anybody who could joke about their boyfriend marrying another woman couldn't be _too_ much in love anyway...Erin never would have been able to say it.

What he dreaded more was when Bill pulled him aside and asked if he had the rings.

Ted looked at his best friend and shrugged, burrying his hands deeply inside of his pockets. "Dude," he said. "I don't want to marry Elizabeth...Bill, I don't even want to _date_ her anymore."

"Why?" Bill asked in shock.

"I love somebody else more...I was just running away from it because of time. Now I know time doesn't matter. If what you want is worth it...time doesn't matter at all."

For one second, as Bill S. Preston Esq.'s face went blank, Ted expected what was to be one of his first real fights with the man to occur and the subsequent dissolution of the Wyld Stallyns to take place. However, Bill only looked relieved and said, "Thank God, dude, we almost made one huge mistake!"

"You didn't want to get married?" Ted asked, smiling happily.

"Hell no!" Bill said, smiling too. "We're too young! I was only doing it cuz of you!"

They high fived one another and then turned serious. "Maybe its okay if we don't do everything alike, Bill," Ted suggested. "Or spend _all_ of our time together. Maybe it will give us more stuff to write about."

"Excellent," Bill said. "Actually, I have my eye on this girl I kind of like..."

"Really who?" Ted inquired, curious.

"Tara, the sister of your groupie," Bill said with a smile.

Ted smirked. Well...it _was_ still two sisters. But hopefully things would still turn out differently then they had before.

Or after.

Whatever way you were supposed to look at it.

* * *

After both Bill and Ted had broken up with them, the princesses no longer wanted to be part of the band for some reason. Being displaced in time could do that Bill and Ted both agreed upon eventually. They departed from the Wyld Stallyns and started a group called the Bitter Princesses where they wrote angry music about the rottenness of men. The boys decided it was only fair to give them their place in the Battle of the Bands and the girls won first prize, becoming overnight sensations.

Bill and Ted looked for Miss Wardroe that night to apologize for letting her down and to also explain how they couldn't enter yet because she was right: they weren't ready. They never could find her though,

Both remaining members of the Wyld Stallyns agreed on this too that she had probably gone off to do a black exploitation film, since she had the body for it.

Ted wanted to tell Erin that he wanted to be with her but felt it would be a mistake. She was still young and what he had told Rufus about time was right: it wasn't fixed. He loved her but didn't want to tie her down or claim her like some possession. He loved her far too much to do that; he wanted to come together when the time was right and for her to be able to grow and learn like he had in the meantime.

He _had_ learned, the metalhead knew. He had finally become smarter.

It was probably for the best, Ted "Theodore" Logan told himself. That way while Erin was growing he could focus his time on his music and actually _learn_ to play the guitar. He might not ever be the smartest but he'd truly be a fool if he thought, like that other Ted had, that he could juggle his music and a wife _and_ a child when he hadn't even been able to handle it and his history class with Mr. Ryan.

A few months after the Battle of the Bands, Bill and he booked a gig at the summer music festival at the San Dimas park. When they took to the stage, Bill looked at him nervously but when they started to play and didn't suck too badly (even if they weren't great either) they both smiled in triumph.

The highlight of the show for Ted, however, was when he looked into the crowd and saw one familiar face smiling up at him, her hair even longer now and the love for him still in her green-gray eyes.

He smiled back at Erin, cheerfully and goofily offering her a happy, enthusiastic wave.

**San Dimas, California. 2020**

Ted "Theodore" Logan woke up in the early morning, feeling the familiar pressure which always told him a trip to the bathroom was in order. He looked at Erin sleeping peacefully in his arms and kissed her forehead gently before slipping away quietly. She made a small noise but continued to sleep and Ted smiled at her in love as he walked to the adjoining room.

Along the way, he passed the silver, gold and platinum records the Wyld Stallyns had been awarded and the photographs of Bill and him with the likes of James Hetfield, Bruce Dickinson and Mr. Eddie van Halen. More important, though, to both members of the Stallyns, were the numerous letters they kept in large tome like scrapbooks from their fans all over the world.

They might not have changed the world, but they had touched the lives of many people and in the end maybe that was more important.

His body was stiff as he walked into the bathroom and his bladder shy but that went with his age. He was no longer the young man he had once been.

However, when Ted went to the sink and started to wash his hands, the man in the mirror above it was wearing a smile which was completely genuine. Ted looked at his middle aged self, his hair back to the way it had once been, wide on each side and shaggy but with a rough beard to go with it now. His eyes looked back but they no longer haunted him; there was no look of sadness in them nor of regret. This was not the Ted his ancient self had shown him: these was no trace of failure or pent up misery.

And the smile was truly happy.

Rinsing off the soap from his hands, Ted thought deviously that maybe if he climbed back into bed clumsily enough he could "accidentally" wake up Erin and then they could make love.

One regret finally did appear as he was drying his hands on a black towel and it suddenly reminded him of a robe he had once seen. He regretted never meeting that guy called Death. But he knew it was a regret that was unnecessary. Both Bill and he would make the being's acquaintance sooner or later as all men did.

But in the meantime there was plenty of life to live.

Ted Logan placed the towel back on the rack and his words to Rufus years ago returned to him...

_"Maybe time isn't all set but God will work it out anyway. Maybe He's got it in the bag. Or maybe he's a jazz fan dude and He'll riff it as He goes along..."_

_"Maybe we are all just notes in a symphony,"_ Ted thought walking back to the bedroom. _"And maybe that's what He's looking for in the end...notes not out of tune but which compliment each other...Maybe He just sits and collects them and will put them all together one day...And then the chosen few will make beautiful music together. Maybe that is the only unity that is possible. "_

Back at the bed he shared with Erin, Ted slipped into it, looking at the only groupie he ever needed and his favorite fan. When he took her into his arms, now not intending to wake her for she looked so peaceful, the green gray eyes in her now older but still beautiful face opened and she stared up at him and smiled in love.

Joyful and feeling about as old as the day he had first met her, Ted "Theodore" Logan smiled and greeted with his own deep chord of love, "Good morning, little princess."

**Author's Note:**

> Dear Keanu;
> 
> I think I've mentioned this before but I want to let you know that I know that you are NOT immortal.
> 
> You got old.
> 
> All the memes and message board posts are lying when they claim that you didn't. And those people that say you are a vampire...well...you're a vampire in the same sense as Angel and Spike on Buffy were, whom you could watch gradually age throughout the series' runs.
> 
> Its not fair to put a label on you that NOBODY on this planet can live up to.
> 
> The thing is that you aged well. To me, you are handsome during every stage in your life, from your youth to the middle of your career and to now. And I think you will continue to age with dignity and grace.
> 
> And that means more.
> 
> Much love,  
> Erin  
> XO XO  
> :D <3


End file.
